A great deal happens when a friend tells you they have cancer. At first, the moment freezes, stops completely and a chill settles over the conversation. Cancer, after all, is the great insoluble conundrum. Everyone I ever knew who had cancer died of it. Lung. Liver. Brain. Colon. The people line up in memory as a phalanx of friendly, pained faces. They are smiling but their eyes reveal a resignation to the deadly forces of genes gone mad.
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Here’s the deal: I’m tired of the news and the recent, concerted effort of ideological morons to manipulate history, literature, and news. As a former journalist with a great deal of admiration for good reporters, librarians, and researchers, that’s not an unusual statement. I have a Ph.D. in Modern American…
Leave a CommentThe sere landscapes around Reno, Nevada, reflect the sterility of the town itself. It’s a town that embodies endemic denial in American culture. The fragility of the ecosystems and geography in the surrounding mountains and hills parallels human vulnerability, the denial of which manifests itself in clownish masculinity on the…
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Reading Henry Miller makes me think about spiritual experience. My reading program, which is a strict one, has me in me in his works at the moment. I keep coming across the word “God” and references to the deity. I don’t consider Miller a religious man. Rather, he was a profane man who happened to be enlightened, insightful, and inspired. One doesn’t need to be religious to understand the nature of God. Perhaps Miller was so grounded in the physical world that he didn’t need to reach far to touch the eternal.
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Every day, the thought of writing something to you stiches my mind like an unseen yellowjacket catching me on the arm when I least expect it. The sting hurts. After a minute or so, the affected area swells—just like a real yellowjacket attack–and becomes a preoccupation. I wander along, slipping letters, magazines, and catalogues into mailboxes. Like an ancient insect’s ovipositor, my satchel opens to deposit packages on porches and stoops. Every delivery exacerbates the condition. Preoccupation becomes obsession.
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